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Famous steak proprietor may be serving up 'Texas
tea'
By Bill Whitaker
Out at Perini's Steak House in nearby Buffalo Gap, kitchen
humor has it that any steaks served in a week's time could very
well come basted in oil.
That's oil as in "outta the ground." Black gold.
Texas tea.
You don't have to look far to see why. Just beyond Perini's
Steak House, standing more than 90 feet tall in the parking lot,
is an oil rig. And although some might think it's just a gimmick
to entertain the tourists who often visit, proprietor and chief
chef Tom Perini insists it's genuine.
"They're really drilling for oil," Tom told me shortly
after the oil rig went up. "There's a James K. Anderson out
of Dallas and they've had this lease for 30 years, to my knowledge.
Well, they told me two months ago they were going to do this.
"I told 'em, 'Now, fellows, you gotta remember - this
is a restaurant.'"
Certainly the rig has garnered plenty of conversation in Buffalo
Gap. For one thing, the rig is taller than most any tree in the
south of Taylor County, easily dwarfing even the area's majestic
oak trees.
When customers were driving up to the restaurant last Wednesday
evening and spotted Tom out near the well, some naturally rolled
down the windows to inquire, "Is it real?"
"Sure," Tom would say, smiling, "and so's the
crew working it."
IS IT ALL RIGGED?
Although Tom is keeping a sharp eye on the rig to make sure
it doesn't interfere with customers, he regrets that its presence
has robbed the West Texas Renaissance Faire of some of its atmosphere.
The fair set up on Perini Ranch grounds last weekend and will
continue next weekend.
Even so, Tom admits he's kind of tickled with the well in his
parking lot, however temporary it may be.
"All these restaurants go to such great extremes to say
they're 'Texas,'" Tom said. "They think if they have
lots of signs and neon and Texas stars all over the place, they're
very Texan. Well, this is about as Texan as you can get!"
Last Wednesday night I asked driller Terry Pelton and his crew,
James Jowers, Randall Pelton and "Bo" Winters, if this
was the most unusual place they had ever drilled a well. They
said it was but did a fair amount of head-scratching before saying
so.
I told them to wait till people start showing up in breeches
and funny hats and begin sticking yet other people in stocks.
The rig hands would then have no doubt whatsoever this was truly
the strangest place they'd ever drilled a well.
When it comes to the rig and folks' reactions, customers will
likely fall into two camps: Those from outside Texas who think
the towering Hack Drilling rig on Tom's spread is a prop and those
who have lived in Texas a few decades or more and <I>know<I>
such things can and do happen in the Lone Star state.
In any event, the rig fits in with other sights at Perini's,
including mutt Benji and other fuzzy pals that roam the restaurant
courtyard undisturbed; a couple of longhorns (including one named
"Horny") that occasionally come into diners' view; and
a mounted buffalo head on the restaurant wall.
Butch Winstead, one of the gang at Perini's, says the oil rig
at least makes his job easier when the phone rings and someone
asks directions to the famous steakhouse.
His response: "Come west out of Buffalo Gap and turn right
at the oil rig."
NUTS ABOUT THE SEASON
Although football season is under way and pumpkins are cropping
up in local produce departments, the air is still too warm to
think of it as autumn yet.
Which is why veteran insurance agent Manly Ballard suggests
we more or less just chuck the whole notion of autumn in West
Texas and proclaim it, simply, "acorn season."
That is, we should have four seasons: Winter, spring, summer
and acorn.
It's not surprising Manly feels this way. For one thing, he
has two mammoth live oaks in his front yard at 533 EN 22nd. As
you probably know, the leaves on a Texas live oak do not turn
colors come autumn, nor do they drop then. However, his live oaks
do litter the yard with acorns.
And Manly, being quite manly about yard work, has in past times
endeavored to pick up each and every acorn so thousands of tiny
oak trees don't sprout in his lawn. Probably the worst of it came
a decade or so ago, when he stood in his yard, all bent-over,
picking up acorns for two or three hours solid.
"I just wanted to get those things up," he told me
the other day. "I guess I got obsessed about it, but I didn't
sit down to pick them up, I stood and bent over the whole time.
Only problem was, when I was done, I couldn't straighten back
up. I was L-shaped."
At least Manly, at 80 the oldest State Farm Insurance agent
in Texas today, kept his wonderful humor about him during that
back-straining experience.
"I came into the house with my hand on my hip and I said
to my wife, 'Louise, I have a new philosophy about the acorn:
Mighty aches from little oakerns grow!'"
And there you have an example of insurance-agent humor.
Bill Whitaker, who really thinks all steaks and drinks should
be "on the house" for patrons eating at Perini's when
the oil well comes in, can be reached at 676-6732.
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Copyright ©1996 or
1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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